The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is bringing major change to the U.S. health care system. Based on new comprehensive research, this course summarizes key implications and opportunities for the dental profession. Specifically, the course highlights:

Important trends in the dental care sector in the past decade

New analysis of the implications of the ACA on dental benefits coverage and dental care use

Opportunities for the dental profession in the changing health care environment

The course takes a very big-picture approach, focusing on the broad implications for the dental care system. It does not focus on narrow issues for dentists as a business owner (e.g. medical device tax, providing health insurance to employees) or on specific ACA implementation issues (e.g. which states have federally-facilitated exchanges, requirements for being a qualified health plan). Links to this type of information, as well as basic background on the ACA, are provided in the course materials but they are not discussed. (CE credit: 1hr)

This course is free for ADA members and summarizes the most up to date, comprehensive research on how various segments of the U.S. population use dental care, what they spend on dental care, their dental benefits coverage and how this is changing over time. The analysis demonstrates convincingly that profound changes are occurring and there are very divergent patterns of care and spending in the past decade for children and adults, rich and poor Americans. State-specific analysis is presented as well. Research on the underlying drivers of these trends is discussed. The presentation ends with a forward looking discussion, including perspectives on how the Affordable Care Act, health care consumerism, and other forces could affect future patterns of dental care use, benefits, and spending. (CE Credit: 1hr)